The way of a backend programmer

a.k.a. Years of blood, sweat and tears

AR, Seznam.cz

 2018

Who am I?

Alex Rembish

  • Siberian
  • Backend developer with 10+ years of experience
  • Python enthusiast (6+ years)
  • Senior Lead Programmer at
  • Currently mostly working on YAML files

Backend programmer?

Backend programmer?

TL;DR who doesn't want to do frontend work

Difficulty Level:
Jr.

Junior goals

  1. Coding itself
  2. Gaining experience
  3. Playing with technologies
  4. Making spare money
  5. Prestige
  6. ...
  7. PROFIT?

Expectation of a Junior

  1. Desire to learn
  2. Listening skills
  3. Asking questions
  4. Clean code
  5. ...
  6. Getting shit done

Junior problems

Junior vs team problems

  1. Not asking questions
  2. Mess in knowledge
  3. "Reinveting the Wheel" problem
  4. Technology misuse/abuse
  5. Dirty code

Team vs juniors problems

  1. Get shit done!
  2. Uncontrolled development
  3. Too busy to explain
  4. Unclear expectations
  5. Unclear tasks
  6. Unclear workflows
  7. Cold start too cold
  8. Undocumented environment
  9. General delegation problems
  10. ...

Level up!

  1. Hard skills
  2. Product knowledge

Difficulty Level:
MID

Four horsemen

of the Apocalypse

  1. Routine
  2. Overconfidence
  3. Loss of interest
  4. YOLO development

Three Years problem

Developer's burn-out after X years*

* generally three years

Let's flip a coin

Team develops programmers,

but programmers make a team

Technical debt

Level Up! Level Up!

RoutineSelf-development

OverconfidenceAutomation

Loss of InterestProficiency enlargement

YOLO developmentRefactoring and reviews

Difficulty Level:

Señor

Product problems

  1. Get shit done!
  2. Uncontrolled development
  3. Too busy to explain
  4. Unclear expectations
  5. Unclear tasks
  6. Unclear workflows
  7. Cold start too cold
  8. Undocumented environment
  9. General delegation problems
  10. ...

...and skills

DIY: Get shit done

  1. Talk about problems
  2. New features vs Refactoring ratio
  3. Project bootstrapping
  4. Basic dev documentation
  5. Build and deployment automation
  6. Preproduction environment
  7. Basic tests
  8. Legacy code reducing
  9. ...
  10. PROFIT

Level Up! Level Up! Level Up!

RoutineSoft skills growth

OverconfidenceBullet-proof environment

Loss of InterestProduct development

YOLO developmentEasy to support and update

...and get ready for the next level

Fullstack

Lead

DevOps

Product

CTO

Architect

Batman

Scrum master

If you're looking for
a company,
which promotes
self-development,
I know one :)

Q&A

Sincerely yours YAML programmer

Email: alex@rembish.org

Twitter: @rembish

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rembish

Presentation: slides.com/rembish

The way of a backend programmer

By Alex Rembish

The way of a backend programmer

Years of blood, sweat and tears

  • 2,055